In recent days, two stories of highly controversial random police checks have gone viral. In both cases, the individuals describe violations of numerous rules of police conduct and gross violations of their basic human rights. The MIA remains silent. Several individuals also speak of an increase in random police checks.
Controversial Police Checks
The first reported case was that of Luka Kintsurashvili, an animal rights activist. In a Facebook post recalling his experience, he says that on July 9, he was stopped during the day by non-uniformed officers who asked for his ID without explanation, and as he began to record the video of the encounter, he was physically assaulted; the officers grabbed his hands to seize his phone, which he refused to hand over. Despite his cooperation, he was forcibly detained, verbally abused, searched without cause, and taken to the police station. His requests to contact a lawyer or family member were denied, and he was inappropriately questioned about his views on sexual minorities, abortion, and animal rights, including whether, as a vegan, he would drink sheep’s blood. Later police claimed that he was stopped because he was new to the neighborhood. They pressured him to delete his video promising in exchange not to take him into pre-trial detention facility. Although he complied and deleted the video, he was still detained. Kintsurashvili was released two days later without being allowed to contact a lawyer.
“I felt like I was not a human being for them,” Kintsurashvili told RFE/RL’s Georgian Service in an interview on July 18, adding: “I think it was a hate crime,” smiling bitterly and pointing to his unique look, his hands, neck, and head heavily tattooed. Oddly, after the interview, he says he was again stopped by police on the street during a random check and was only allowed to leave after contacting his lawyer. His court date has been set for July 22. He is facing administrative charges of disobeying and insulting police officers.
Similar story happened to Tornike Obolashvili, the Chief Secretary of the Constitutional Court judge. In his Facebook post, Obolashvili says that on the evening of July 15, he was approached by two non-uniformed men who told him they were police officers, asked for his ID, and requested to search him and his bag. Although he agreed to show his ID and undergo a body search, he refused to allow them to search his bag without due process. The officers responded with threats, refused to return his ID card, and resorted to physical violence when he began to record the encounter. His elbow and fingers were injured after officers slammed him to the pavement. Obolashvili was forcibly taken to a police station, and his hands were twisted in the police car. At the station, he was again forced to open his bag, mistreated in a room without cameras, and denied the right to contact a lawyer on the pretext that he was being “restrained” rather than officially “detained.” He was tricked into believing that he would be allowed to call his lawyer, but when he unblocked his phone, the officer seized it, searched it for private information, and deleted his video. Finally, his bag was searched without his consent. However, after the officers learned of his position at the Constitutional Court, their attitude changed. They lamented that there would have been no misunderstanding he had revealed his status earlier. Nevertheless, a detention order was issued for his arrest, which he refused to sign, saying that it was full of lies. He was charged with administrative offenses for disobeying the police after being illegally detained for four hours during which his rights were repeatedly violated.
Obolashvili told Civil.ge that he had not been contacted by the Special Investigation Service and that, as far as he knew, the investigation into the case had not been opened.
Checks & (Im)Balance
Random police checks are a preventive mechanism to protect public safety. According to the Georgian Law on Police, police officers have the right to randomly check a person and carry out proper inspection procedures during the check. This can be done if there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect that they are wanted or missing persons, that they have committed or are likely to commit a crime, or that their appearance, physical characteristics, or means of transportation indicate that they may be have been involved in a crime. Most of the time, however, an officer’s decision to stop, question, identify, or invite a person depends entirely on his or her subjective assumptions about that person.
Such checks are carried out everywhere. In practice, the checks are sometimes carried out by non-uniformed officers, which means that they represent the criminal police. They patrol the cities day and night, randomly approaching people in groups or alone, asking them for their IDs and personal information, whether they have anything illegal, inspecting them superficially, sometimes searching their belongings, and photographing them. Almost all of these cases usually happen to men in groups or alone. Unless one is or is with a woman, they will most likely not be searched. A person can only be searched by an officer of the same sex.
However, the law obliges the officials to explain the reasons for which the person is being checked. A person must also be informed about the rules of conducting such a procedure. The inspection of a person and his belongings may be carried out only superficially. Only if the cursory inspection reveals the need for a more thorough search, the officer shall obtain a court order or, in urgent cases, an investigator’s order and present it to the person. This includes, for example, opening a bag.
In the cases described above, all of these rules were violated, not to mention that both individuals were deprived of their right to contact a lawyer, including from the police station, were verbally and physically abused by law enforcement, and were tricked and had their personal belongings taken away, including phones full of personal information.
However, the law provides for special police checks, often referred to as “raids”. Raids were a common practice during the second president Eduard Shevardnadze in the 1990s, and they were usually conducted with excessive use of force, with insult to the basic rights and dignity of a person. After the Rose Revolution, they were abolished for some time, but in 2014, special police checks were reintroduced by adding a special article to the law. The law now clearly defines the obligations of police officers when conducting such procedures. Among other things, they must have a written order from the minister; in urgent cases, a temporary verbal order is also possible. There must also be “reasonable grounds” for conducting such checks, and police officers must be equipped with an activated video recording device attached to their uniforms. In the cases described above, citizens did not see such video recording devices, let alone uniforms.
A Bigger Trend
After the Kintsurashvili and Obolashvili cases that went viral in social media, the information on other similar cases as well surfaced as well.
Two other similar cases of controversial police checks and subsequent detentions were reported to Civil.ge. In both cases, it was reported that the individuals experienced the same scenario of police mistreatment as described above. Both chose to remain anonymous.
One Georgian citizen and his foreign friend were stopped three times in one day this week, Civil.ge was told, with the request that his name not be disclosed. Another was stopped three times in one week, once being photographed by an officer. Some also claimed, based on their observations, that teenagers have been particularly targeted lately.
On July 19, a 17-year-old boy was stopped by two non-uniformed officers near the Rustaveli metro station in the capital, as he was walking. His mother, Lika Basilaia-Shavgulidze, a journalist and harsh critic of the government, wrote in the Facebook post about the incident. She said her son was asked to show his ID, and was treated rudely by the officers, who were accompanied by a young man allegedly trying to provoke the teenager.
We have tried to reach the Ministry of Internal Affairs for comment, but have not received a response. The Special Investigative Service told us that they have nothing yet on the controversial cases of Kintsurashvili and Obolashvili. The article will be updated in the event of a response.
Who (and What) Do You Serve ?
As Georgia braces for the October parliamentary election and as the government-led violence is expected to intensify, such cases quickly draw attention and are perceived as part of the broader repression campaign. The problem of police violence has become espessially prominent during the anti-Foreign Agents’ law protests, both last and this year.
Georgian CSOs pointed out in the wake of the 2023 protests that the police employed administrative arrests as a means to obstruct the expression of protest. They also argued that the existing legislation on administrative offenses is a repressive instrument in the hands of the police ad is used for unjustified restriction of rights, stressing that “illegal administrative detention and post-detention practices are unacceptable and violate fundamental human rights.”
On top of that, it’s possible to speak of the practice of using alleged false testimony by police officers to punish activists, members of the opposition and critics. In a number of controversial cases involving police officers, there have been discrepancies in the officers’ testimony, raising credible concerns about possible false statements. Illustrative is the case of Lazare Grigoriadis where officers provided conflicting accounts of the events.
The problem is aggravated by the absence of an independent judiciary in the country, which has become one of the stumbling blocks on its European and Euro-Atlantic integration path, so that an ordinary law-abiding citizen critical of the authorities has no recourse in the legal system, making such cases against such individuals a threatening “lesson” to others who dare to speak out or exercise their right to civil activism. It is expected that this method of intimidation will be used more and more abundantly as the elections approach. The other question is whether it will work on the citizens.
